Chapter 12: Your number one asset is not a number

Chapter 12

Your number one asset is not a number

One of the greatest opportunities that a founder or manager can have is the opportunity to make people in their company feel special.

All too often, people – your number one asset – leave a company because they feel they are just that, a number. I think some founders believe that once they’ve hired a Head of People or a Chief Happiness Officer (or whatever you want to name the role) it is okay to abrogate their own responsibility for managing people.

This is so wrong. As a founder, you should always be an HR manager – the way you treat people will filter through the organisation. You should still be the number one recruiter, the person who ensures that your culture is maintained and who can motivate people to be the best they can possibly be. Your job is to guarantee that even as your company grows (and with the right vision and people it will), everybody feels that they are a key component of the team and that their contribution is valued by the company – especially by you!

I want to give you five examples, so that you can better understand how simple this critical role can be.

1. Invictus

I’m not sure how many of you have seen the movie Invictus? It really annoys me when people say that the rugby scenes aren’t that good. Of course they’re not. Matt Damon, who stars in the film as François Pienaar, captain of the Springbok rugby team, had probably never even heard of the sport prior to making the movie. Invictus is the story of how Nelson Mandela used rugby, a sport synonymous with the Apartheid regime, to unite a country.

There is a scene in the movie where Mandela’s black security contingent ask him when he will be getting rid of the two white Afrikaner men who had been security guards for former president F.W. De Klerk. Mandela responds that he won’t be getting rid of them – they will be joining the team. These are men who not long before would have killed Mandela on sight. Later we see the two white guards having a conversation, which goes along the following lines.

One man asks, ‘How do you find the new president?’

To which the other replies, ‘With the old president [De Klerk], I was invisible. But with the new president [Mandela], he knows that I like English toffee, so whenever he goes to England he buys me a packet.’

So, for £1, Mandela has turned a man who not long before would have killed him in a heartbeat, into someone who will literally put his life on the line for him – simply because that man no longer feels ‘invisible’.

2. Ted Lasso

I loved the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso – and if any of you hasn’t watched it, I highly recommend that you do. It’s not about football (soccer). It’s about how a manager who knows nothing about soccer (I can relate to that – I know nothing about technology despite having been in the industry for 40 years) manages the different personalities at a club, to deliver unexpected results.

One episode in particular is a great example. To paraphrase: Ted asks the team’s water boy, ‘Hey, Nate, can I have one of your famous drinks?’

To which Nate replies, ‘What did you call me?’

‘I called you Nate, that is your name isn’t it?’

‘Yes it is, but nobody has ever called me by my name before.’

How simple was it to win over the water boy – just call him by his name and he is on board. Next time you walk into a convenience store, try calling the person behind the counter by their name and see the smile you get. Not rocket science!

3. The $20 million return on a $20 breakfast

I wasn’t sure whether to have ‘the best financial return on a crappy breakfast in history’ or simply ‘the Prickly Puke’ as the header to this point. Sean McCreanor, an absolute legend, is the founder (together with Marko Tomic – yes The Power of Two again) of Assignar, a construction technology company. Sean came to pitch Assignar to OIF Ventures a few years ago, saying, ‘I only want to partner with OIF Ventures because I used to work with Dave at Com Tech and I will never forget my first day at work – he took me for breakfast. I know how he values people’. The local cafe (which was named after a type of cactus) was so bad we affectionately renamed it the Prickly Puke. So it wasn’t the quality of the meal, it was the quality of the time that I, as the founder, was willing to spend with our number one asset – people. We recently sold 50 per cent of our investment in Assignar, for $10 million. We invested $4 million, and hopefully in addition to the $10 million already returned there will still be a big chunk of cash to follow. Not a bad return for a $20 breakfast.

I presented to a bunch of founders not that long ago, and one of them said, ‘Dave, now that we’ve grown, I don’t even know some of my team members’ names.’

‘How many people do you have, Rick?’

‘Thirty.’

‘Mate, that’s bullshit. Thirty is nothing. Your homework is that by next week you will have taken every member of your team who you have yet to meet, for breakfast, coffee, lunch or dinner.’

Getting to know your team is not that hard – and today, with flexible work and work-from-home options, it is more important than ever.

4. Does he drink with us?

One of the best people I ever had the privilege of working with is Melpo Pupulas. Melpo joined us as sales support (customer success) from our competitor, Merisel, a large US-listed company.

I will never forget having drinks with the team one night and overhearing Melpo saying to another team member, ‘Does he [being me] drink with the staff?’ I thought to myself, how lucky am I – we have just hired one of Merisel’s most valuable people, and the best part is that their CEO doesn’t even realise their loss, just because they were too important to drink with everyone in the company. I’ve been trying to headhunt Melps for years, but just can’t get her out of retirement!

5. Dom

When I was acting CEO of Centric Wealth, I spent quite a bit of time at CHAMP, the private equity firm that owned 80 per cent of the company. I always used to chat to the lady on reception, Dom. I once asked her how long she had been with CHAMP, to which she replied, ‘Twelve years.’ She told me she loved her job, and when I asked why, she said, ‘Every Friday, Bill [Bill Ferris, in addition to being an absolute legend, was the founder of CHAMP and is affectionately referred to as the father of private equity in Australia] would ask me what the plans for the weekend were, and on Monday he would ask how the weekend went.’ It wasn’t because CHAMP paid her a bucketload of cash or gave her eight weeks leave, it was simply because Bill, the founder, genuinely cared about Dom as a human being.

• • •